Chapter 65
November 4th
“Where have you been Milly? I got so worried when I found you weren’t at home,” Max said
hugging his sister over and over again.
“I had to leave,” she replied.
“What?” he asked holding her tight. “How could you be so stupid, Milly!?” he asked exasperation in
his tone. “We are so lucky that you are okay.”
“I had to come and find you and Mason and Miles and Mattio,” she replied. “But then I got lost and
that girl over there, that’s our cousin. She saved my life,” Milly said pointing to me.
“I know who she is,” Max said putting his sister on the ground next to him and taking her hand.
He eyed me carefully but the absence of contempt and scorn in his expression pleasantly surprised
me.
“She saved you did you say?” he asked looking down at the man who was still lying on the floor.
“Yes, I wouldn’t be alive anymore without her,” Milly replied.
His lips twitched almost into a smile before his face straightened and he scanned the forest.
“Where’s the Alpha?” he asked.
“I haven’t seen him in hours,” I said truthfully.
“I’ll take her from here,” Max replied and I nodded my head. He picked his sister and began to walk
away. A few moments later he turned around, “Thank you.”
And there it was. The alter ego I struggled so hard to imagine.
For the first time since I met him, I had experienced Max caring about someone. Around his sister,
he was a transformed man. How could he try to get me killed one day and genuinely thank me the
next?
I nodded my head again before he swung Milly onto his back and began to run. He was so much
faster than Milly and I were and within minutes I couldn’t see them anymore. I began to run as well
as it was at least midnight and the air was too cold to stop for too long.
Blair told me to run South to find the base. But since the sun had set, I had no indication of which
was South was and since the journey in the truck had only been an hour, and I’d already been
running for at least three, I was categorical, without a doubt, entirely, absolutely lost.
I ran aimlessly for another hour and a half before I inevitably had to take a break. Stops were
dangerous, I had already learnt that twice but my lungs heaved and my chest pounded. I had to
lean my back against a tree to avoid cardiac arrest.
Every few seconds I held my heavy breath so that I could listen to my surrounds, checking that
nobody was nearby. After 10 minutes my body had returned to normal and I was ready to go again.
That was when I heard a male voice shout.
“Over there!” One voice said, I immediately seized the knife spinning around trying to spot who
shouted it.
“Duck!” A different voice said from the opposite direction. Through instinct, I took his advice and
dropped down to the floor. I felt a rush of air over my head before the sound of a sharp object
sticking into a tree. Footsteps approached me as I stood back up narrowly avoiding another knife.
Footsteps belonging to Max.
1 didn’t have time to process what was going on before three more footsteps came out of the
forest and another knife. Max pulled me to the side as the knife pierced through the spot I was
standing on. The men were coming from three different directions. I stood back to back with Max as
we slowly rotated, keeping our eyes on the 3 terrifying looking men. Max grabbed one of the knives
out of a tree and threw it straight at the closest Ayas warrior. It hit him in the centre of the chest and
he fell to the ground, still alive, but hardly.
“Ella, I know that you have never done what I say before, but this time both our lives are on the line.
When I get to 0, you have to throw that knife as hard as you can,” Max said as the men continued to
near. I gulped and nodded my head still confused as to why he was helping me.
“3,” Max began.
“2,” The men were only about 20 metres away now. One going for Max, one going for me.
“1,” I clenched my fist around the knife handle
“0,” Max said finally.
I pulled it out of the holster and exerted all my force through my arm. The man on my side was so
close I would have had a job to miss, it plummeted straight through his left shoulder instantly
freezing him from head to toe. I turned around to see Max having more issues. He only had a
regular knife, it had hit the man, but he was still able to fight.
I rushed down to the paralysed man, retrieving the Praesidium Deae Astra as they continued to
wrestle. In seconds I tossed it to Max. He caught it before delving it straight into the second man’s
heart.
It glowed once again and the man became floppy and limp.
“Sorry mate, it was me or you,” Max said into his ear as he dropped him to the floor, not only
paralysed but most likely dead too.
“You came back,” I said. “Where’s Milly?”
“She’s safe,” He replied. ” I saw these three heading towards you on our way back to the base. I took
Milly to Miles and came straight back. Looks like I only just got here in time,” He continued
prodding the first man to check he wasn’t alive and about to pounce.
“But why? I thought you hated me?” I said,
“You saved my sister Ella,” Max said. “You knew she was my sister but still helped her didn’t you?” I
nodded my head “She means more than any 20-year-old family feud and I wanted to thank you
properly for what you did.”
“How did you get out of jail?” I asked still not completely trusting him.
“Ayas men, they set free all the convicts,” Max replied. “But I can’t stay here…”
“Because Leo will kill you without a second on thought,” I said.
“I’m leaving Stella for good, you won’t ever have to deal with me again,” he said taking the knives
out of the pockets of one of the men and putting them in his own. “When Milly is old enough tell
her why I had to leave, she deserves to know. But until then, I’m sure she’ll be fine with Mason,
Mattio and Miles. And if you looking for the base, it’s fifteen miles that way.
He pointed in the opposite direction from where I had been planning to run. Oh. My navigation
skills are shit.
I nodded my head. As he started walking away.
“Wait, Max,” I said.
“Yeah?” He asked.
“What’s different about Milly?” I asked.
“That’s a story for another time,” Max said. “Good luck with your baby,” he said looking at my belly
before continuing to walk away.
“But I’m not going to see you again,” I said.
“Not necessarily,” he finished before picking up his speed. In moments he was gone, even quicker
than when he had Milly with him.
A few minutes later, I too was running through the forest. I followed Max’s direction but after
narrowly avoiding encountering a troop of Ayas men, I was forced East where I eventually met the
Cerridwen Stella border.
I had given up trying to get to the base as by now there’d be Ayas men all around it and me going
there was far too predictable. Instead, I found myself walking along the road into Kellington.
I was weak, tired and hungry. My mouth was dry and my scent had securely embedded its way back
into Leo’s t-shirt. All 1 wanted was to be home and I mean home home. Back to where I lived before
all this drama and chaos came into my life.
Just being off Stella territory made me feel safer and as I got closer to Kellington, I felt myself relax.
So much so that I stopped on the side of the road to rest again.
As the fresh cool air of the night relaxed my burning lungs, I sensed the faint flow of headlights in
the distance.
I watched as it approached, interested at who would be driving out of a town as small as Kellington
at this time of night.
When the car was only about a hundred metres away, I felt a pair of arms reach out of the forest
and clasp me around the waist before dragging me into the concealment of the trees.
The engine sounds got louder and a few seconds later, a large black SUV passed with a Canadian
license plate. Ayas men.
I almost just met my untimely end. And I had whoever just pulled me out of their sight to thank.
My saviour twisted me around to face them and I was met with the familiar brown eyes of my
brother.
“Connor!” I exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”
“Saving your bacon,” he laughed. “The men in that car just ransacked the house looking for you.
Fortunately, I had to stay late at work and they didn’t see me get home and silently listen to their
conversation until they left. I heard that Stella is at war and that some Alpha is wanting you dead. I
had to come and check that you are safe and it’s a good job I did.”
“Thank you,” I said hugging him again. “And I’m well protected because I’ve got this weird, magical-
I was cut off by Connor suddenly taking a deep sniff of my scent.
“Wait…you’re carrying his child aren’t you?!” Connor growled suddenly breaking up the hug.
“Connor-I-” I stuttered.
“Yes or no, Ella,” he replied deeply. “Are you pregnant.”
I nodded and looked down to the floor. I could feel his glare on me and the intensity of it.
“That beast is going to pay for this,” he growled.
I slowly looked up to see his face.
It was murderous.
I knew that he hated Leo, but this was more than just hatred. It showed abhorrence, loathing…the
desire to kill.